


take these broken wings and learn to fly - all your life

by nosecoffee



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: AU where Galen and Jyn ran away to sell kyber crystals on a distant planet, Angst, Bodhi is only mentioned, Cassian's a roughed-up cutie pie, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Jyn's a bit of a dick at the start, Some Fluff, vague smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-17 05:35:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9307691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nosecoffee/pseuds/nosecoffee
Summary: 'Keep whatever you believe in your heart, but if you're not down on your knees, you're no good to anyone.'Cassian Andor was an orphan, and he hardly spoke a word, but by God, he was far from acceptance.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Blackbird' by The Beatles
> 
> I wrote this on camp and woke my friend to read it and make sure it was okay
> 
> All Hamilton references are intentional

'Keep whatever you believe in your heart, but if you're not down on your knees, you're no good to anyone.'

That had been drilled into his brain since he was able to talk.

Parades of artillery sometimes parted the crowds in the market place, like a great sea in a book somewhere, and his mothers hand clenched around his shoulder. He hid his wince rubbing his nose.

"Kneel," ordered Troopers on every side. Cassian felt his mother kneel.

Cassian stood his ground in a crowd of bowed figures.

"Cassian!" His mother hissed and he stood defiant, unwavering.

She kicked the back of his knees and he collapsed to them, feeling the cobblestones tear through his tender skin.

Cassian knew his parents meant well. Of course they did. It was a time of paranoia and fear, and if something ever happened to their dear, sweet, little, innocent son, they'd be lost.

So, Cassian did as they said.

Barely flinched at the sight of blasters Troopers were wielded, stared at the ground when they walked through the streets, squeezed his eyes shut and prayed for thunder when the sight of the stars was blocked by giant Destroyers.

He was no good to anyone, otherwise, or so they told him.

Cassian kept telling himself this when their house burnt down after a series of suspicious hate crimes in the area, and his parents were nowhere to be found.

Cassian Andor was an orphan, and he hardly spoke a word, but by God, he was far from acceptance.

He was eleven years old when he realised that if he talked less and smiled more he'd get further in life than someone who ran their mouth off.

For, he reasoned, they were sure to wind up dead.

~

Jyn Erso seemed to have never learnt this lesson.

She appeared in the market place, running a stall with her father, when Cassian was fourteen. They sold kyber crystals, hung on chains, made into luck charms, polished until they shone with the light of a forgotten star, somewhere in the deep reach of the universe.

Her voice was loud and demanded attention, and she received it. Jyn seemed to relish this fact, her wide green eyes shining with secrets and delight. She didn't seem to think that there was anything wrong with everyone's eyes on her.

Cassian felt drawn to her, of course, but she hardly glanced at him from her stall, selling her product with all the passion of a trained businesswoman.

His own stall, robotic repairs, didn't hold so well in the swell of a hungry crowd, but as long as he could greet her with good morning and goodnight, everyday, he could survive.

~

When he was sixteen he found a junked Imperial droid in the dump.

It took him nearly all night to drag it back to his stall.

The next night he spent frantically trying to reprogram it.

The night after that, it worked.

~

K-2SO made things easier. Though a lot more human than his (former) fellow Imperial droids, he still held certain standards towards Cassian's ideas.

It was like Cassian had built himself a parent.

Jyn watched him the day he brought K-2SO into the stall with him to help. Her wide green eyes flitted over Cassian himself, and the droid, a suspicious, uncertain expression gracing her face.

In return, Cassian walked over during pack up, wary of the Troopers that patrolled the street.

"Can I help you?" She asked in brisk terms, watching him with an amused air, as he approached.

"See something you like?" He responded, in turn. He half-hoped she'd buy some junk off his table.

Jyn snorted, "That droid you scavenged scared away what little customers you had. No one wants to buy parts from a little boy and his pet oppressor."

Cassian flushed, a little hurt at her bluntness. He shouldn't have been, of course. He'd only heard her converse with her father and customers.

Cassian wasn't paying her to be civil.

"Leave him alone. And I'm not a little boy." He snapped, watched her grin.

Ah, so she had been betting on his biting back.

"I'm only saying what everyone's thinking, little boy." Jyn shrugged. Cassian clenched his fists in his trousers.

Two could play it that game.

"If anyone's little, here, it's you, using a daddy's-girl angle to score customers who wouldn't dare approach of it was just him."

The sting of her slap was nothing compared to the kick she pulled to pin him to the dust with a foot.

Jyn was grimacing, but when she saw his awed expression, she grinned fractionally. "I'll see you tomorrow, Cassian Andor."

Her foot released his chest and he sat up in time to watch her catch up to her father.

"I didn't like her." K-2SO said from somewhere behind him.

"You don't have any taste." Cassian replied and started rubbing the dust off his clothes.

~

Jyn was leaning on his stall the next morning.

K-2SO marched into the stall without a word to her.

"Can I help you?" He asked, trying to sound as bland as he could.

"Papa told me that I was awful to you yesterday." She proclaimed. Her face was set in a small grimace which Cassian had put down to her resting expression by now. "I'm very sorry for implying that you were allied with the Empire, and I'm sorry for slapping you and kicking you."

She held out her hand in what he expected to be a handshake but when his hand closed around hers - the contrast was spectacular, with her hand being simply engulfed in his own, her pale skin pressed hotly against his darker skin - she released it and left something poky in his hand.

Cassian stared at the kyber crystal.

"It's a good luck charm." Jyn explained.

"Thank you." Cassian replied.

"I can't set up this stall on my own!" K-2SO called.

~

It was almost like a truce.

~

Now, the looks they shared across the market place were pleasant, inquiring quietly with their eyes after the other.

Cassian kept the kyber crystal in his back pocket, for luck, a sign of Jyn's good faith towards him.

He gave her a bag of dried fruits in return. It wasn't quite as permanent, but it was twice as meaningful and heartfelt as he could muster.

If Jyn's glowing expression that she shot him was anything to go by, Cassian had far from fucked up.

~

And then the day came where everything was fine until a man who worked out at the space port started a fight out front of her stall and Galen Erso ended up dead in the red, red dust.

~

Cassian didn't see her for a while after that.

~

"Would you like to know the odds of her ever seeing you the way you see her?"

Cassian rolled his eyes. "No."

"Well, it's very low."

"Thanks, Kay. Lovely topic."

~

Cassian didn't even mean to see her when he did.

It's not like he didn't know about the boxing rings scattered across town (they'd been made illegal almost four decades ago), and it's not like he didn't visit them every so often.

He didn't think he'd ever see Jyn take down a Wookiee.

And yet.

~

"Can you train me?" Cassian didn't mean for the words to come out so breathless, but he could hardly take them back when Jyn turned around, hair tied back in a braid, pulling a shirt on.

At this point, Cassian had every reason to believe that he was immune to most things. He was not immune to anything about Jyn Erso, whatsoever.

"To box?" She asked. Like the last time he'd seen her, she hadn't been crying in the dust, murmuring, "Papa, papa," over and over again.

It was almost a year ago, now. Hardly any grief left to showcase.

"To fight," he replied. "There's no way I could make it out there with all the things I know about fighting."

"And that is?"

Cassian makes a fist and Jyn immediately pulls his thumb out from under all his other fingers.

He sighs, "Apparently, not even the first thing about forming a fist." She smiles a little at that.

"Why should I?" And it's almost a goad. Give me one good reason...

"I'll pay you." The way she grinned told him that he was speaking her language.

"Deal."

~

As it turned out, and Cassian would swear his life on it now, Jyn didn't break promises.

~

She didn't run the stall anymore.

"Why?" Cassian asked once, and she frowned, pushing bread around her plate.

"Guy who sold us the crystals wouldn't sell to me. Said some very offensive words. Don't think punching him in the teeth helped my case." Jyn replied, and pulled a chunk of bread away. She examined it closely before popping it in her mouth and closing her lips around her fingertips.

"Oh," was all Cassian could muster.

~

Three months after he propositioned her - and God didn't it sound terrible phrased like that - he finally landed a punch.

"Weak," she claimed, a wince in her eyes. "But good."

~

He dropped into a kneeling position and watched her blanch.

"Wait," Jyn said, and Cassian paused. He'd do anything she said.

"What do you need?" He replied.

Jyn shook her head, looking away. "No. I can't. It's too..." She bit her lip.

"Too what? Oppressive, forceful, dominant? I'll stop if you want me to." Cassian assured, a hand on her shin.

"I just don't want to..." Jyn still wasn't looking at him.

"To...?" His hand pressed into her trouser leg. She huffed.

"I don't want to hurt you." Jyn finally said. Cassian scoffed, and that made her look at him, if only for a moment.

"You won't hurt me. Whatever you do, I can take it." He told her. Jyn reached down, ran a hand carefully over his hair.

"But, Cassian, don't you...?" She trailed off, looking a little lost.

"Don't I what?" Her hand fisted his hair and he bit down a gasp.

Jyn scowled at the wall. "Why would you want to - with me, I mean."

"Why wouldn't I?" She finally looked down at him.

"What?"

"Is there any reason that you don't want to because of something you feel for yourself?" She flushed.

"No, I just feel like, in this position..." Cassian realised how forceful he was being, backing off and scooting across the carpet.

"We don't have to. I'll stop. Go home. Give Kay an update." Jyn sat herself down, back to the frame of her bed. "Nothing has to happen."

"...But..." She allowed.

"But?" He asked.

Jyn swallowed, obviously steeling herself to do something. "Are you okay...Like that?"

"On my knees?" Cassian clarified.

"Yes." Jyn nodded.

"Someone once told me that I was no good to anyone if I wasn't on my knees." He grinned. She scowled.

"Someone once told me that I'd make a better living on my back, and now he don't have no teeth."

He pointed at her, sitting legs crossed in front of him. "Fair point." Jyn nodded. "It doesn't have to go like that."

"With you on your knees?" The way she asked it made him flush a little. It was too dark for her to see that, though.

Cassian swallowed. "Yes."

Jyn got up on her own knees, suddenly all confidence. "How then?" She looked genuinely curious.

"Do you trust me?" He took her hand carefully, trying to distract her from the way it was most definitely shaking.

"Do you really think that if I didn't trust you you'd still be here?" Jyn asked. Cassian tapped the bottom of her chin with his index finger. She looked up and locked eyes with him.

"Hold on..." Cassian said in a breath and cocked his head.

~

"Have you ever done this before?"

"Yes. No."

"Yes or no?"

"Yes. Not like this."

"Not with someone like me?"

"What does that mean?"

"Someone unconventional."

"That's not something that's wrong."

"No one like me?"

"No one's like you."

"Cassian."

"Jyn?"

"Not like this?"

"Not when it really mattered."

"Does that mean this matters?"

"Of course."

~

"Wait."

"Shhh."

"I just-"

"Hush."

"Let me-"

"No."

"I worry-"

"Don't."

"But-"

"Cassian."

"Jyn?"

"Here."

~

It's alright for a while. They fight, they kiss.

They talk and they argue.

It's all he actually wanted.

They make friends with a pilot at the space port, talk with K-2SO about tracking down the Resistance and joining up.

The day the Destroyers start dropping out of the sky, they're already in the cargo hold of Bodhi's ship, ready to actually do something other than sell kyber crystals and scavenged junk.

It doesn't mean that Cassian's free hand isn't pressed into his back pocket, holding onto the lucky charm Galen Erso made his daughter give him four years ago.

Jyn doesn't say anything, but her face says it all.

She buried her father on that planet, she built a life on that planet. By God would she let anybody ruin it.

Cassian was gonna help her kick their asses as much as he possibly could.

  
Fin.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I really hope you enjoyed it! If you did, please feel free to leave a comment and/or a kudos, and track me down on Tumblr @nose-coffee. Again, thank you!


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